The Iconic Project: Architecture, Cities, and Capitalist Globalization

The very fact that a critical account of architecture’s entry into the spectacle of the world of commodities can be written by a professor of economics is in itself the telling story of the state of architecture in global capitalism. Focusing on the iconicity of contemporary architecture, Leslie Sklair takes issue with star architects, the transnational capitalist class (TCC), and the architectural critics who try to differentiate canonic from iconic architecture. The book demonstrates that the author is familiar with the general literature on contemporary architecture; that he knows and has read about architects, including some who have designed iconic architecture around the globe; and that, as an economist by education, he is well versed in architecture’s relationship with the economic and class structure of capitalism.